Who Am I???

This music seems to calm me down after school. The night sky above seems starless like the daylight sky, only darker. Did that joke not make sense to you? I’ll let you in on some insider information. It wasn’t supposed to make sense.

One day, I said something dumb about the water from earlier that day. My mind saw it as some good idea and shot it outside to my friends. I immediately took it back and everyone there laughed. We then continued to say things about the place around us like that. Now, every now and then, one of us would make a joke about the area around us.

Today, my friend came over after sports. I didn’t participate and still went to all of their practices. She was in the shower for now. Their practice days were every Monday-Thursday after school for three hours. Sometimes we ran around the school for the first part of the day. Other times we did other things. This was my alternative for going to the gym with my mom.

She taught me how to do a back tuck and round off. Anything that other girls need a spot or guidance one, she taught me. I usually only helped with tumbling or stunting (when someone isn’t there.)

My friend’s name is Evelin Donnelly, or Eve. She was in the shower for now. We used to be like this every day, until this summer when my father died. He worked inside a science facility here in the city. Specifically, he worked the night watch with another man. I went there sometimes during the summer to see what was going on inside.

Now I work part of the week after he left. How does a night job work well with early morning school? On Friday, I go to the office on the last bell and head to the facility. During the time from then to 9:00 PM I work on tests they had. On Monday, I use some sort of energy drink, not coffee, to keep myself up till dinner.

Eve came out of the bathroom with a dark gray shirt that had an alien on it and a pair of my maroon sweatpants. Her white hair was darker now, dripping water from the ends. The music playing loudly bounced through it. “Could you turn that down? My eardrums are about to burst.”

She sat down on the couch and turned on the television. It doesn’t connect to a cable box or DVR. My computer tower connects into the back. We don’t really watch TV here daily. If there was a reason we wanted to watch a specific network, mom had those channel next door.

“Are you still working the weekends? That job has completely changed you.” Eve was leaning her head back to look at me.

“I know it is different to only be able to talk after school. They asked me to take his place for now and then maybe every night after graduation.”

Her expression changed. I noticed something was bothering her. I closed my laptop and the music stopped. My footsteps made the only noise in the room. I knelt down behind the couch; place my hands over the cushion next to Eve and my head on the edge. “What’s wrong? You don’t look like yourself.”

 

“Of course I am not myself! We never get to talk like before. Just because of what happened to your father, doesn’t mean you can ignore being the 16 year old you are.” She doesn’t normally get angry when I am around.

I stood up and grabbed the calendar mom hung up. In three days was our week off for Thanksgiving. “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are our free days. We could hang out those days if you want to.”

She smiled at me. I couldn’t see that strange, weird person Eve just was. Did I forget to mention mom lived in another apartment? Our apartments were two or three rooms big. One for the bedroom, another for the living room/kitchen and the last room was for the bathroom. Mom also had a key for both apartments. I don’t know whether it is for just coming inside while I was gone, or for making sure I couldn’t lock her outside during special, human, times.

I could hear the lock get released and open. Her head popped in and looked around. She seemed to be looking for something important. “Zane. Do you know where my book you borrowed is? Sally said she wanted to it on her trip.”

“It should be in my ‘bedroom’ on the table. I finished it yesterday at school.” She quickly rushed over to that door and back out. That look she had was still there. “Is something up, mom? You seem to be thinking about something.”

“We got a call from the facility today.” Now she was sulking toward the door.

“What was the call about? Did they find out how dad died yet?” She stopped. Talking about dad’s death was bad around her. Emotions would always take over as the #1 priority. “Can you leave for a minute, Eve? Zane and I need to talk privately.” Mom didn’t look at her.

“Sure. If this is that important.” Eve looked aggravated as she walked into the hallway. Again, the strange Eve was outside.

Mom sat down on the couch and waited. Her body sat straightly and neatly on the cushion. I followed her to the couch. Waiting for her to answer my question about the call.

We sat there for what seemed like an hour. The TV was off and silence surrounded me. It drove me crazy after a little time. A tip for having me sit around doing nothing. Always have some sort of non-repetitive noise going on for me to hear. It could be people passing by or just random music going on. Whatever happens don’t let me be in silence!

Finally, I saw her mouth move. Her voice didn’t leave though when it happened. I watched more to see if maybe I could decipher some sort of sentence there was. “Zane. They can’t find what cause his death. Everyone has looked and tested their experiments to maybe find a cause. They’re sorry.”

Each month was the same when they started to investigate. Now that all of the subjects have been tested, we wouldn’t be receiving those calls again. “You know there has to be a way he died! Nothing was found inside his body that day?” I grasped her hand and stared into the hazel eyes we both shared. There was nothing found inside him when they searched. I literally mean that nothing was inside of him. The organs, bones, muscles, veins were all gone. He wasn’t cut open either. But somehow, he died and everything inside was gone.

Are you telling me everything, mom? Because I remember another time-” That enraged her to talk about. My mouth was covered by her hand and I fell backwards across the couch. Clearly I said something wrong.

“Seay’s are not to question anything about a person’s death. You should do good to remember that now.” She was right. Our family had little rules for everyone there. One of them happened to be about the death of another.

I laid down and watched as she silently left the apartment. The room was dark and silent again. My eyes closed and I thought about dad being there still. Just like he would before.

Something had been placed on top of my stomach. It felt like it weighed 130 pounds compressing whatever was underneath. My eyes opened up again to see a white haired, blue eyed, clothes stealing Caucasian girl sitting there. “Would you kindly get off of me now? I might die from being sat on for too long by an over-weight person.”

Eve slammed a fist into my chest now. I made an “oof!” sound and we both began to laugh.